Callie's POV

"You're going to be in a good amount of pain for quite some time. These are prescriptions for pain relievers and antibiotics. You need to keep your arm bandaged and in the sling at all times, except when you shower. If you don't have any questions, you're good to go! I hope you get to feeling better soon, Callie." My doctor handed Stef two prescription papers and helped me adjust my sling.

"Thank you, Dr. Keeton." Stef said as she shook his hand. He smiled and walked out of the room. "Well, are you ready to go? We could go get something to eat if you'd like."

"No, I'm okay. Thank you though." I pushed myself off of the bed and winced from the shooting pain in my arm.

Stef smiled and led me down to the parking lot and helped me into the car. We drove to her house in complete silence. When we finally pulled into the driveway, I was shocked. I didn't expect them to have such a nice home. The foster home Jude and I were in was really crappy. It was more of a shack than anything else.

"Wow, uh… your home is really beautiful." I got out of the car and looked up at the house in amazement.

Stef laughed a little and slung my bag over her shoulder. "Well, hopefully you can find that this is your home now too." She put her hand on my shoulder but I instinctively jumped away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, it's fine. It's just a reaction." I followed Stef into the house through the back door.

"Callie!" Jude ran up to me and threw his arms around me.

"Hey buddy. You doing okay?" I whispered to him. For the first time in years, Jude was finally able to be a kid.

He nodded and pulled back. "I'm glad you're here. They're really nice." He whispered back.

"I'm sure they are." I squeezed him tightly. "We'll talk later. I'm sure Stef and Lena want to talk about the rules." I sent him on his way and followed Stef into the kitchen.

A woman about Stef's age sat at the kitchen table. She had curly brown hair and light brown skin. She was absolutely beautiful.

"You must be Callie! I'm Lena, it's very nice to meet you!" Lena walked over to me and shook my hand firmly. "Does your arm feel okay?" Her cheeks reddened. "That was a dumb question. I'm sure getting shot doesn't feel good at all."

I smiled a little. "It's not too bad. I'll be fine in a few weeks."

Stef motioned for me to sit. I took a seat on a stool and cradled my arm gently.

"So we just want to go over a few ground rules." Stef began. "You will be sharing a room with our daughter, Mariana. She's probably your complete opposite; Mariana loves dressing up and doing her make-up all the time. You don't really strike me for a girly girl." Stef smiled and winked at me. "But, regardless, she should be very welcoming to you."

"This is one of Stef's old phones." Lena slid me an iPhone. "Jude has one of my old ones. We want you to be able to get ahold of us at any time. Our numbers are programmed into it already, along with Brandon, Jesus, Mariana, and Jude's. You have data, texting, and calling just like the other kids."

"Wow, uh, thank you!" I picked up the phone. "That's really nice of you."

Lena smiled and patted my hand. "We want you and your brother to feel welcome here."

"Okay, so curfew. You need to be in the house at 9:00 on school nights and 10:30 on weekends, unless we give you permission to be out later." Stef explained. "We have dinner as a family every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday night, but we understand if you aren't comfortable doing that right away."

"No, family dinners sound great." I was actually really excited at the thought of spending time with these people. When Jude and I were at New Intelligence we never ate all together. There were just too many of us. So most of the time we would just take our food back to the barracks and eat while we studied.

"Well, good! I'm glad to hear that! You and Jude will go to school with the other kids at Anchor Beach. I'm the Vice Principal there so I'll drive everyone back and forth unless you decide to walk. Sometimes my meetings run late so Brandon and the twins will just walk home together. You will need to take an entrance exam, but I'm sure you and Jude will have no problems passing it." Lena slid me and brochure for the school. "It's right on the beach. I think you will both love it!"

I picked up the brochure and studied it carefully. "It's a high school?"

"Actually it is kindergarten through twelfth grade. Don't worry, you won't be separated from Jude." Stef reassured me.

"No, it's not that. It's just… Jude and I have already graduated high school. In New Intelligence you graduate from high school at thirteen. We've already started taking college courses online." I set the brochure down and slid it back to Lena.

"Wait, you graduated at thirteen? That sounds impossible!" Stef's eyes grew wide with disbelief.

"The trainers expected the best from everyone. The education level is very high caliber, along with everything else."

"Okay… well Lena and I will have to discuss what will be the best option for your education then. We don't want you to have to sit through courses that you don't need, but we definitely want you to continue your education. So, we'll talk some tonight and then let you and Jude know what our decision is in the morning." Stef said. "If you'd like, you can go get settled in your room upstairs. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out which one you're in. Dinner will be ready in about an hour. And I'll go out and get your medicine so you can take one before bed."

"Thanks." I smiled weakly at then and hefted my duffle bag over my shoulder. I walked up the stairs and quickly found the room I would be staying in. The door had Mariana on it along with pictures and cutouts from magazines. I stood in front of it, not knowing if I should knock or not.

"Yay, you're here!" A voice shrilled from behind me.

I whipped around and came face-to-face with a short, tan, brunette. "Uh, yeah? Are you Mariana?"

"Yes!" Mariana grabbed my hand and led me into the bedroom. "I am so excited that you are here! Do you know how horrible it is to only have brothers? They're disgusting!" Her excited attitude faded. "But, I'm sure Jude is great. I didn't mean to make fun of him."

I laughed a little. "No, it's okay. Jude… he's pretty great."

"Here, let me take that." She reached for my bad and gently set it down on the bed that was against the back wall. "Are your other bags downstairs? I can go get them for you."

"No, this is all I have." My cheeks flushed. I'd never felt embarrassed about how little I had. It never mattered before. Everyone in NI wore the same thing and we all had the same basic necessities.

"Oh, well we'll just have to go shopping!" Mariana sat down on her bed and started filing her nails. "You can have half of the closet and there is a shelf in the bathroom for you. And if you don't like the comforter I'm sure moms will get you a new one. We figured the yellow and gray was a good choice."

"Thanks. And I like the bedding. It's better than plain gray everything." I laughed to myself. I never realized how boring everything at New Intelligence was. There was hardly any color anywhere. At least not compared to this place. I unpacked my things and managed to put all of my clothes in my dresser. "It looks like you're not going to have to give up any of your closet." I motioned to the dresser. "Everything fits…"

Mariana smiled sadly at me. "You can borrow some of my clothes if you want. At least until we get you some more."

I glanced at the open closet. It was full of skirts, dresses, and flowy tops. Everything was pink or bright yellow. None of it was my style; not even close. But the gesture was kind. "Thanks, Mariana. Uh, what room is Jude in? I want to make sure he is settling in okay."

"Oh! He's rooming with Jesus. They're in the room to the right of ours."

I smiled in thanks and knocked on the boys' door.

Jude answered and pulled me inside. "Callie, this room is so cool! But, weird at the same time."

"How is it weird? It's all normal stuff." I ruffled his hair and plopped down on the bed next to him.

"It's weird because we've only seen plain walls for ten years. They have decorations here! It feels like… home." His eyes glazed over and I knew he was remembering being at home with mom and dad.
"I really like this place."

"Me too, buddy. But don't get too attached. We probably won't be here for long." I hated to hurt his feelings but I needed him to know the truth. "Hey, how did everything go at NCIS today?"

"Oh, it was good! I talked to the agents and they all agreed to have their chips activated. Everything went smoothly. They all got placed in their new homes and then I activated them so they weren't confused as to where they were. And the chips for the agents that didn't surrender were activated just fine, except…" Jude trailed off.

"Except what? Were some of them defective?"

"Not some, just one." He nervously bit on his fingernails. "Foxtrot's was damaged when he was getting scans at the hospital. The magnetic waves from the MRI machine destroyed it."

"Crap." I muttered under my breath. "So what's going to happen to him? Is he just going to be in a secure facility or what?"

"That was the plan. But he escaped his security detail. After the doctors performed his surgery, a guard was assigned to watch him at all times. But Foxtrot managed to subdue him. He ran out of the hospital and no one has seen him since."

I looked at my brother and we knew what we had to do without even saying anything. We had a new mission. We had to find Foxtrot before he tried to carry out any of the planned attacks.

"I'm going to work on securing a safe internet access so I can track any movements he might make. He'll have to make a call or buy something at some point. And he's injured, so he really can't get that far anytime soon." Jude ran his fingers threw his hair. His mind was working at a thousand miles an hour. Jude was the best at computer stuff. He could hack into anything and not leave a trace.

"How are you going to do that? The computer they have won't be strong enough to handle the amount of work you would have to do."

"Ziva brought me back to NI today. I managed to get our laptops, NI cell phones, and some of our weapons." Jude pulled out a black back pack from under his bed. He handed me my laptop and a smaller bag containing my weapons.

"Jude! Do you know what will happen to us if Stef and Lena find out that we have these? We will be so screwed!" I shoved the weapons back to him.

"Callie, where do you think Foxtrot is going to go? He is going to come directly for us! He's pissed that we betrayed New Intelligence. He's going to seek revenge on the both of us. We have to protect ourselves and these people. He will have no mercy on them. We're their only hope at surviving his rampage. Just trust me on this, Alpha." Jude gently placed the bag back into my hand. "I already told Lena that we have these laptops. They are okay with us having them since I told her that they were completely wiped of New Intelligence files."

"Were they? Were they completely wiped?"

"You know I couldn't do that. But, after we find Foxtrot and everything with NI is over, I will wipe them. I just don't want to lose information that could help us."

"What about the phones? We really don't need them. Stef and Lena already gave us their old ones."

"These phones have secure lines. They will be exclusively for us to communicate with each other about the mission. Again, after all of this is over, we can destroy them."

"Okay, I'm trusting you on this Bravo. We cannot get caught. I'd like to stay with these people for as long as possible. I don't want to screw it up. But… you're right. We have to protect them from Evan. After that, we can just be kids." I squeezed his hands. "I can't wait for that day."

He smiled at me. "Me either."

"I'm going to go put this stuff away. I'll see you at dinner, okay?"

He nodded and I left for my room. Luckily Mariana wasn't in there so I didn't have to be super secretive. I put the weapons in the bottom of my dresser and slipped a small padlock onto it so it couldn't be opened without a key. I didn't know if Mariana would snoop or not, but I had to be careful just in case.

"Brandon, Callie, and Jude! It's time for dinner!" Stef yelled up the stairs.

I took a deep breath. I had to make sure my nerves were calmed before I went down and faced the entire family. Normally I was pretty good and keeping whatever I was thinking a secret, but Stef just had this way about her… Every time I looked at her, I just wanted to spill all of my secrets. But, for the time being, I had to lay low and make sure nothing was revealed.

Sorry for the late update! Things have been pretty crazy lately. Leave me some ideas in the reviews!